Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/78

70 practised in drawing; but becoming fully aware of the importance of this matter, he then studied very zealously, although he was already pretty well advanced in years: and giving considerable attention to the practice of design, he ameliorated his drawing by degrees, and the extent to which he did so mav be seen in the windows which he afterwards executed for the above-named Cardinal, in Cortona; in ‘another work outside the city; in a round wdndow of the capitular residence above-mentioned; in the front namely, on the right hand of him who would enter the church, and where are the armorial bearings of Leo X. All these are very different from his earlier works, and much superior to them; the same may be said of two windows which are in the Brotherhood of Jesus, on one of wLich is the figure of Christ, on the other that of San’ Onofrio.

At the time when, as we have said, Guglielmo was dwelling in Cortona; Fabiano di Stagio Sassoli, of Arezzo, departed from life in that city: this artist had been an excellent master in the painting of large windows, for which reason the superintendent of works for the Episcopal Church, had given a commission to Stagio, son of the above named Fabiano, and to the painter Domenico Pecori, to prepare three windows for that building; they are in the principal chapel, and are each twenty braccia in height. But when these works were completed, and the windows fixed in their places, they did not entirely satisfy the people of Arezzo, although they were in fact tolerably well done, nay, are rather praiseworthy than not. Now it chanced at this time, that Messer Lodovico Bellichini, an eminent physician, and among the first of those who were then governing the city of Arezzo, was called on to repair to Cortona, there to attend the mother of the above named Cardinal; he then became well acquainted with Guglielmo, with whom, when he had time, he always conversed very gladly; Guglielmo, too, on his part, who was then called the Prior, from having just about that time received the benefice of a Priory, conceived a cordial friendship for that physician. The latter therefore one day asked him if he would be willing to proceed to Arezzo, for the purpose of painting certain windows in that city, provided the good will and consent of the Cardinal could be obtained; when, having received his promise to that effect, Messer Lodovico, with the permission